“About the same time last year, Microsoft made a bold proclamation: the adoption rate for its new OS, Windows 10, would be so high that by mid-2018, 1 billion devices would be running it,” Jelani James reports for Tech Times.

“Fast forward to Friday, July 15 — roughly a year before that deadline — and the tech firm has admitted that those estimates were too ambitious,” James reports. “‘We’re pleased with our progress to date, but due to the focusing of our phone hardware business, it will take longer’ to reach the goal, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Yusuf Mehdi said in a statement.”

“For Microsoft, who counts 350 million devices running Windows 10 as of June, the missed goal is a tough break,” James reports. “Since making that promise in 2015, the company has been banking on that statement to try and draw third-party developers into building apps for Windows 10.”

“Microsoft was so confident that its phone business would be a success, that the aforementioned 1 billion goal was predicated on a significant number of Windows 10-powered smartphones to add to the personal computers that will be upgraded or replaced,” James reports. “Unfortunately for the tech giant, things didn’t go as planned.”

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12 Comments

Nice!
I think Ballmer can take credit for most of that lack of accomplishment. They’ve never been able to dig themselves out of the grave he dug for them for so many years of windows licking leadership.

But the die was cast under Gates–nothing was allowed to flourish (or potentially flourish) which could possibly undermine the two headed cash cow of Windows and Office. This, of course, was exactly their undoing.

But the fact that ANYONE in MS in 2015 thought for even the tiniest fraction of a nano-second that Windows Mobile would make any meaningful contribution to reach any kind of goal is fascinating–in a morbid, psychotic, completely-unhinged-from-reality kind of way.

Even strong arm tactics can’t save beleaguered Microsoft. None of their bullying and highly dubious tricks of yore work any longer which only goes to show how utterly enfeebled they are as a company today. Heck of a job, Ballmer.

Problems with W10:
1. Administrators can’t run native programs without a registry hack. (WTF?)
2. Not compatible with legacy programs (many businesses still use these)
3. Going from a W7 interface to W10 is a shock and unfamiliar for many users.
4. Nobody in their right mind will purchase W10 after the free upgrade period expires.
5. No way to revert or reload a upgrade if you experience a HD crash after the free upgrade expires.

The only thing that W10 does well is to automatically load motherboard drivers, without a disk from the manufacturer.

Wow they actually sold 350 million copies. Who would be naive enough to buy copies of Windoze these days? I mean you’d have to be missing a few synapses to make a move like that and….oh wait a minute…I think I know who they sold it too.